


youth

by sobi



Category: Day6 (Band)
Genre: Coffee Shops, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Lowercase, M/M, Sharing a Bed, Studying, it's exams angst though: a mood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-25
Updated: 2017-10-25
Packaged: 2019-01-22 22:51:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12492604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sobi/pseuds/sobi
Summary: studying for exams is just an excuse for Jaehyung to drag Younghyun out on not quite coffee dates.





	1. day

**Author's Note:**

> listen, final exams start in exactly one week ;; i’m giving myself this tiny cute fic before i throw myself into cramming a whole years worth of content i didn’t pay attention to.  
> this place exists, just not in seoul lmao...
> 
> youth (day): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0L1sVsAV3A

there’s this café jaehyung had found when riding his bike around the streets of seoul. it’s ceilings stretch meters high in the industrial district and resides in what looks to be a converted warehouse – all concrete walls and a shutter door as an entrance.

it’s tucked away behind a maze of warehouses and it’s a surprise it even gets any customers at all when it’s so out of the way of the public foot traffic. instead it has a dedicated stream of customers, drawn to it by reputation alone and the aesthetics it brings.

he thinks of younghyun when he sees the string of lights dangling across the metal beams of the roof, like stars – or a cloud of fireflies. the industrial-esque building is entirely grey, from the concrete floors to the walls and the yellow lights bring warmth to it, reflecting off of the oak wood tables and in the baristas dark eyes.

“come on, a change of scenery will do you good. you can’t keep studying on that tiny desk.”

younghyun’s papers now spread out across the floor of their room, each subject’s binder is lined up against the wall, but that’s as organised as it gets as it spreads out into a mess of chaotic handouts and half scribbled notes.

“what even is this?” jaehyung asks, his toes crinkling on a sheet of paper before he steps back and picks it up.

“ _to what extent did france’s involvement in the american war of independence contribute to the development of-_ “ jaehyung reads out, and then squints up at younghyun, hunched over his desk. “younghyun, you don’t even study history.”

“that- i have no idea how that got in here, it’s probably dowoon’s.” younghyun’s head is still down, furiously scribbling something down.

“since when does dowoon even come in here apart from to game.”

younghyun shrugs. “don’t ask me, man, ask dowoon.”

jaehyung returns after handing back the essay paper to dowoon, who had scrunched it up and flung it in to the trashcan across the room with an “ _i can’t stomach that shit so early in the morning_.”

it’s currently nearing noon.

“anyways, we’re going out to that café i found, you’ll love it.” jaehyung tugs at younghyun’s hoodie, a little bit too big on him – maybe sungjin’s. he ignores the pang of jealousy in his heart.

“i don’t want to, i really have to finish this.”

“dude, come on just bring it all with you, we can study there. they’ve got good coffee.”

jaehyung thinks of the cheap, instant coffee they currently have in the cupboard – it’s awful taste disguised with tooth-rotting amounts of sugar or sweeteners depending on how healthy they’re feeling.

“i’ll pay for your coffee,” jaehyung says and it’s the icing on the cake. younghyun shuts his laptop lid, stretching back languidly, like a cat as his hands reach out towards jaehyung, a few vertebrae in his spine popping.

“this better not be far away,” he sighs.

they ride their bikes there, ducking and weaving between city traffic, two and three story apartment buildings dotted with taller high-rises giving way to the industrial district with wider roads and larger buildings.

“where the fuck are we?” younghyun yells over the wind that whips around them both.

“it’s not far now!” he looks back over his shoulder to see younghyun peddling hard to keep up, heavy backpack straining on his shoulders.

jaehyung races him along the longer stretches of road, having only to curve out around the occasional parked car on the side of the road and avoid the large trucks with engine brakes that hiss at them when they come swinging around the corners.

jaehyung’s bike is red and rusted and he has to avoid the first gear because the chain always falls off when he switches to it. younghyun’s, in comparison, is a much sleeker and newer bike – coal black with a wire basket on the front. jaehyung's basket is a small plastic crate held on with bungee cord and duct tape to hold all the books he doesn’t want to carry. he only envies younghyun slightly (a lot).

with a screech of brakes they pull up to the café.

“how did you even find this place?” younghyun asks, panting a little as he pushes his stand down to prop up his bike. jaehyung just lets his bike fall in to the grass of the empty plot next door.

“found it when i was just riding around town last week. i thought you’d like it.”

younghyun looks at him then, a soft smile playing on his lips. “better be good coffee then, if we’ve come this far.”

jaehyung reaches across and smacks his arm. “fresh air does you some good – exercise too.”

they walk up the small driveway and through the side door. the shutter door is open, but a food truck sits in the entrance, the sweet smell of syrup and crepes drenching the grey smoke that pours out of the filter of the roof of the truck.

a few high schoolers sit inside at the low tables; a stack of crates used as benches. jaehyung and younghyun tactfully slide onto an actual table, sitting on stools at one of the oakwood benches.

“hipster heaven,” younghyun comments. he spreads his work out across the table, bag slung across the back of his chair and he’s already chewing on the end of his pen. jaehyung sighs, younghyun barely wastes a minute.

“i’ll get coffee.”

he orders two large mochas for them both, extra chocolate and extra shot in younghyun’s just to keep him alive. he plonks himself back in his seat, twelve thousand won lighter as he pulls out his own laptop. gucci.com is the first thing that pops up on the screen after he taps his password in. he’d spent last evening salivating over bags he’d never own, debating whether he should continue his education or drop out and rep gucci.

he closes the tab. younghyun studies diligently in-front of him and it makes him feel awful about his own life just procrastinating in younghyun’s presence.

the barista brings out their coffees, a pretty swirling leaf pattern embedded in the foam that jaehyung regrets breaking just so he can drink. however, the coffee is smooth and absolutely worth every cent. younghyun gives jaehyung the small cookie that comes with their coffees, a few crumbs hitting the crinkled pages of his textbook that he sweeps off with his sleeve.

“i don’t like shortbread that much.”

that's a lie. younghyun loves shortbread, especially the ones with the tiny chocolate chips in them that this café certainly specialises in – it practically melts in jaehyung’s mouth as he chews on it with a grin at younghyun.

it’s a small offering of thanks, in younghyun’s own un-outright way.

it’s peaceful. jaehyung has one headphone in and younghyun the same just so they can complain every few minutes. the coffee steamer hisses away and people duck in and out – buying crepes or coffee or both.

they can’t afford crepes this time around. jaehyung’s wallet can only manage a few half decent coffees before he starts counting his coins and begins rationing his meals at home.

instead they churn through revision notes, stopping occasionally for a game of ping-pong at the table set up on the far side of the room. they verse each other and on the rare occasion two high school girls who completely smash them. a woman with a hooked nose that dips behind the rim of her mug with every sip glares at them from over her newspaper at the ruckus they kick up with every shot won or lost. it’s the cafés own fault for allowing students to be set lose with a ping-pong table – it’s not exactly the most quiet of games.

when the sun begins to dip – a dusting of vermillion sprayed across the sky like icing sugar, they both call it a day. their backs ache from hunching over their work and jaehyung’s hand is beginning to cramp, but they stretch it all out. the strings of lights above them start to truly light the café, rather than relying on the natural light everything becomes just a little more softer, a little more warmer and yellow as the dozens of tiny lights reflect in younghyun’s eyes.

he’d disturbed clouds of fireflies with younghyun once – running through fields on a camping trip last summer with the tiny friendship group they’d formed in college. wonpil, dowoon and sungjin taking their best photos of the true mass of the fireflies as the pair had tried to catch them, cupping their hands gently around the tiny creatures until their fingers glowed through the gaps.

it’s the same, happy look younghyun has now that he’d had back then. warm and yellow.

“i had a good time studying for once,” younghyun tells him, as they slowly ride home side-by-side. jaehyung yawns sleepily and has younghyun yawning as well.

“same, but physically and mentally i am _exhausted_.”

“it’s more study than you’ve done in a month.”

“you don’t know that!”

“you’re desk is gathering dust, i don’t think you’ve even opened one of your textbooks.”

he hasn’t, it’d sell for a good price if its still in mint condition he reasons.

“i mean… you’re not wrong, but i’m still a good student.” jaehyung’s got a steady list of b’s, a few a’s in there to balance out the c’s.

“i envy your ability to bullshit.”

“well, i envy your ability to not procrastinate, we can’t all be that flawless.”

jaehyung looks at the sharp angle of younghyun’s jaw as he says this. maybe he’d get cut his finger if he ran it along the edge of it. wind ruffles younghyun’s hair, effortlessly windswept in comparison to jaehyung’s own that gets pushed back and frizzy on his head – a somewhat electrocuted einstein aesthetic.

while jaehyung is usually dashed with envy at his best friend’s looks, it’s recently been morphing in to something more along the lines of ‘i want to be _with_ you’ rather than ‘i want to _be_ you’. it’s dangerous territory he’s treading in to.

younghyun races ahead of him on the last familiar leg back home, illuminated by the setting sun of vibrant, primary yellow.


	2. night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> youth (night): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rop261voZX8

younghyun sneaks into jaehyung’s bed at 3:46 a.m.

jaehyung knows this because his alarm clock blinks the numbers at him as he cracks open his eyes, feeling younghyun pull back the duvet as his sleep muddled mind tries to make sense of things. it's a few days after their study date, he's dragging younghyun out to the café again in the morning, but not quite this early. 

cold air reaches for his bare arms, but it’s smothered with younghyun as he curls up next to jaehyung, barely an inch away from him.

“whassup?” jaehyung murmurs, rubbing sleep from his eyes with his knuckles. younghyun doesn’t say anything, instead he shuffles just a tiny bit closer, so his arm is pressed up against jaehyung’s as they both lie on their backs. there’s a faint sniffle.

jaehyung props himself up on one arm to get a better look at younghyun – he’s facing up at the ceiling, cheeks wet under the red glow of the clock. “hey, what’s going on?”

jaehyung reaches out a hand, towards younghyun’s cheek but he turns his head away, facing the darkness of the room.

“i watched _grave of the fireflies_ ,” he says. it makes sense now.

“why did you do that?”

“couldn’t sleep and i’d been cramming all day, gave myself a break.”

“you gave yourself a break with _grave of the fireflies_?” jaehyung asks incredulously.

“yes! it seemed a good idea at the time, but now i can’t stop thinking about how – how she never woke up.”

“why did you watch it?”

“i didn’t think it’d make me sad!”

“it’s literally called _grave of the fireflies!_ _grave_!” jaehyung exclaims. “what did you think it was gonna be like?”

“something not that sad!”

younghyun’s lower lip wobbles, his eyes are already puffy and at that jaehyung reaches an arm across and pulls younghyun close to him, flipping him over so he's no longer facing away from him but towards him.

“she never woke up, jaehyung.” 

younghyun takes this moment to curl his arms around jaehyung, pressing his face into jaehyung chest so he doesn't have to look him in the eyes. jaehyung understands the weakness in this moment, even wonders why younghyun sought him out in the first place, but gives younghyun the comfort he's likely seeking anyway - reserved of judgement when his best friend just wants to cry at close to four in the morning, but doesn't want to be alone. 

he'd never had the bravery to seek out younghyun when he was feeling weak, but now that feels the soft warmth against him, he almost wishes he had. 

“i know, i know she didn't.” he reaches a hand up into younghyun’s hair, soft and short at the nape of his neck and he twines his fingers in the longer hair at the top of his head, switching from scratching gently at his scalp to messing up his usually neat hair to scratching again.

“are you sure you didn’t just watch that to make yourself sad?”

jaehyung had cried for an hour when he’d watched it the first time, he remembers shoving a pillow over his face, reluctant to let out any sound. it had broken his heart for a moment.

“it wasn’t _that_ intentional,” younghyun says.

maybe it was their upcoming exams piling pressure and stress onto younghyun’s shoulders, he wasn’t the most emotional of people and sad movies were probably just an excuse. a teardrop hits the fabric of jaehyung’s shirt.

“she – she never woke up.”

“stop saying that, you’re just making yourself more sad," jaehyung laughs, a quiet huff of air. 

“i can’t help it,” younghyun’s words are now muffled by the fabric of jaehyung’s shirt, nose pressed into jaehyung’s chest. jaehyung doesn’t mind that younghyun’s tears are wetting his shirt – he lets instead lets them fall uninterrupted, lets younghyun cry himself out silently, barely a noise leaving his lips apart from the occasional shuddering breath.

jaehyung hugs him close, feeling his heartbeat under his palms, the rise and fall of his chest, the softness around his stomach he’d been working so hard to get rid of. jaehyung loves it however, as he holds on with his arms wrapped around him

it’s all completely platonic, he tells himself, nothing more.

and he tells himself this as presses the smallest of kisses to the crown of younghyun’s head – when his breathing evens out and the tears come to a stop – smelling his own sweet shampoo in younghyun’s hair.

“your eyes are going to be so swollen tomorrow morning,” he whispers to nothing, lips brushing younghyun’s hair. “you won’t be able to open them.”

younghyun still clings to him, one arm thrown across his chest, but it’s lax now.

they fall asleep like that, loosely clinging on to each other in the early hours of the morning, the sky a slowly lightening bruise of purple behind jaehyung’s curtains.

jaehyung stays unaware of the faintest of smiles on younghyun’s lips – the fact he’d never truly fallen asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading!! comments and kudos make my day <3


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